Category → man utd
Quality vs Excitement
This season’s Premier League is turning out to be the most exciting for a long, long time. It’s also the lowest quality display, among the front-runners, that I can remember.
Arsenal were inconsistent pushovers for the first few months. You can’t say Man Utd are strong in either attack, midfield, or defence. Chelsea looked invincible for a good while but have been stuck in second gear since Christmas.
Don’t get me wrong – relatively-speaking they’re better than the rest and deserve to be at the top. But you get the feeling that the league-winning side from any of the past 10 years would wipe the floor with this lot.
And yet…this season has been a real vintage. I’ve watched more games than I have for ages, as anyone can beat anyone.
Will the Premier League’s administrators learn anything from this. Say, that a closer level of team ability leads to better entgertainment? I shan’t be holding my breath.
They’re more likely to claim that their hands-off policy of letting market-force dictate is working. But that isn’t what is going on here. The rich teams are just having a bad year. Next year one of them will get their act together and win the league by 15 points and only lose once in the process.
But I won’t be watching.
Manchester United’s Striker Shortage – Bad Planning or Bad Debt?
Manchester United’s chief executive, Dave Gill, on the resources at Alex Ferguson’s disposal:
“We are looking at players all the time, the money from Ronaldo is sitting there in the bank account, we have been clear on that.”
Twenty-four hours later, one injury-prone striker is injured.
With Danny Welbeck on loan at Preston and unable to cut short his season-long spell at Deepdale, Sir Alex Ferguson has just Wayne Rooney and Dimitar Berbatov available as senior strikers.
And with Rooney doubtful for tomorrow’s trip to Wolves with a knee injury and Berbatov struggling with a long-term knee problem, the negative Owen bulletin could not have come at a worse time for Manchester United.
So did Alex Ferguson simply forget to buy enough striking cover for the season? Or is this money in the bank, as many suspect, a fiction to mollify the agitating fans?
This is Dave Gill’s explanation:
He’s a Scot, he wants value for money.
Just as well they didn’t hire an Irish manager or he no doubt would have lost the money to a conniving leprechaun.